“Good. Incision’s all healed. Everything’s fine.”
“Oh. OK.” I’m wondering why on earth he’s brought her up. He rarely talks about his patients unless something unusual happened.
“Anyway, I was telling her how Oliver helped you with the garden and all of that, and one thing led to another, I guess, and she asked if we’d come for dinner.”
“Oh. That was nice,” I say, knowing Harrison said no. It’s an occupational hazard—the doctor-patient relationship can feel so intimate at times that some patients mistake it for a real friendship, often inviting Harrison to bat mitzvahs or birthday parties or fiftieth anniversary celebrations. While he’ll attend big celebrations, where he’s one in a crowd of people, he eschews the smaller, more intimate ones—coffee, lunch, dinner. Those, he feels, are crossing a boundary of sorts, creating a more personal connection that could compromise future care.
“Did you turn her down kindly?” I ask.
He hesitates. “We’re going over there a week from Saturday.”
“What?” There’s no way to hide my shock. “Why?”
He takes a deep breath and another sip of water. “Babe, it’s just—we’ve been here what, two months? And you haven’t really—” He pauses. “I think it would be good for us. To get out. Make friends. Feel more settled.”
I stare at him, trying to excavate the subtext of what he’s saying. “We have friends.”
“In Philly. Hard to borrow a cup of sugar from someone an hour and a half away.”
“What do I need sugar for? I don’t bake.”
He looks down his nose at me, pointedly. “You know what I mean. Anyway, you already know Oliver. And I think you’ll like her. She’s funny.”
As I scrape up the last few bits of brown rice from my plate, I gnaw the inside of my cheek, to keep myself from telling my husband that it’s not her I’m worried about.
Chapter 9
Sometimes, I’ll work furiously on a painting, finish it in two days and be done—never to paint another stroke on it again. But then there are the ones that take me weeks, months even, and every time I look at it, I’ll still see more I can add, angles or shadows to be tweaked, sections that need to be completely painted over and redone. The carnival painting is the latter. I’m not sure if it’s because I keep remembering details from that dream—a man on stilts with red circles on his cheeks and striped pants, or the moon dangling in the sky like a slivered almond—or because I want to stay living in it, like an actor clinging to a favorite movie set, long after production has ceased. Or maybe I’m trying to get lost in something other than my thoughts.
Like how Harrison still hasn’t gone to the fertility clinic, even though it’s been a week since he missed the first appointment and the clinic is only ten minutes away from the hospital and he can’t really be that busy. I reminded him about it on Monday evening and then asked once more on Tuesday and he snapped at me: I said I’ll go and I will, Mia. Give me a freakin’ break.
Or how I’m going to see Oliver again in two days, when I wasn’t sure that I’d see him again ever. It feels a little dangerous. Not deadly dangerous, like swimming with sharks, but mildly dangerous, like touching a candle flame on a dare. Although, sometimes, I guess, it only takes a tiny flicker to burn an entire house straight to the ground.
* * *
On Saturday night, Harrison pulls into the driveway of a blue clapboard Colonial with white trim in downtown Hope Springs. I’m jittery, like I drank three cups of coffee in a row on an empty stomach, and I swallow, trying to calm my nerves. I considered begging off. If I had feigned illness or exhaustion, Harrison would have easily canceled. But honestly, Oliver’s just a man. He has no idea that I’ve dreamt about him—or what we’ve done in those dreams.
Thank God.
Harrison and I follow the flagstone path and go up four cement steps onto the porch. He pulls the handle of the screen door, opening it to rap on the frame of the solid wood one behind it.
Three deep barks ring out from the bowels of the house, and when the door opens, a horse covered in black fur greets us, nearly knocking me over. Harrison grabs my arm to steady me. And Caroline comes flying out in a blur, reaching for its collar.
“Willy!” she says, while simultaneously apologizing to us and pulling him back in the house. “He gets excited about company.” She calls over her shoulder, “Oliver! Come get your dog.”
And then he’s there, not ten yards away. Standing at the transom between the living room and the kitchen, hair wet from the shower, ears sticking out making him look boyish and manly at the same time, a kitchen towel slung over his shoulder.
The sight of him momentarily unsteadies me, that now-familiar out-of-body sensation taking hold, and I repeat my mantra.
He’s just a man.
He’s just a man.
He’s just a man.
Oliver whistles. “C’mon, Willy.” And the dog instantly stops struggling against Caroline and trots obediently to Oliver, sitting at his feet. Its tongue hangs out of the side of its mouth like a large piece of bologna.
Caroline straightens up, brushing back wisps of brown hair that fell loose from the knot at the back of her head. “Sorry about that,” she repeats, her chest still heaving slightly from the effort. “Please come in.”
Harrison gently places his hand at the small of my back and guides me in first.
“Stay,” Oliver says, holding his palm up to the dog’s snout, and then strides toward us. Everything about him is casual—from his bare feet to the plain white T-shirt beneath the draped kitchen towel to the open beer bottle loosely resting in his right fist, which he deftly transfers to his left to shake hands with Harrison.
Then he turns to me, his eyes friendly, warm. “Mia.”
“Hi,” I say, slipping my hand in Harrison’s and squeezing.
“What kind of dog is that?” Harrison’s still staring at the beast, his voice full of wonder.
“Willy’s a Newfoundland. Gentle giant,” Oliver says, his face nearly beaming with pride as he glances back in the dog’s direction. He turns back to us. “Come on in. What can I get you—beer, wine?”
“Wine, please,” I say. We both look at Harrison. He’s still looking at the dog.
“Total beast,” he’s muttering in awe, and then, noticing the silence, he glances up. “Oh, beer would be great. Thanks.” Caroline directs us toward the sofa and chairs and Oliver retreats back into the kitchen, Willy following him obediently. Harrison and I sit on an old brown and orange flower-patterned couch staring at four taxidermied mallard ducks hanging in midflight on the dark-paneled wall above the fireplace mantel.